Daily News

ISF Demolishing Homes in West Bank

JERUSALEM -- Dozens of soldiers and members of the Israeli civil administration demolished on Wednesday six homes in an outpost located in the West Bank, military sources confirmed to Xinhua.

In addition, four families residing in Ma'ale Rechavam, an outpost located at the Gush Etzion settlement bloc not far from Jerusalem, were evacuated from their houses.

All roads leading to the outpost were blocked to prevent settlers and right-wing activists from returning to the spot.

There are about 30 settler families living in the outpost, and the structures that were demolished on Wednesday were built in the past year, the Walla news website reported.

The outpost was established in 2001 and initially received funding from the state, however it has since then been designated as an illegal outpost built on private Palestinian land and several injunctions were issued for its destruction.

Military sources told the Ynet new website that the residents of the outpost have been warned not to expand the outpost in the past.

Settlers and right-wing politicians had expressed their objections to the eviction and called upon the government to legalize the outpost, a move it had declared it would do in the Supreme Court in a discussion about the legality of the outpost back in 2011.

"These are state land and this community is in the outline of the entire Gush Etzion bloc. It's legal and there was no reason for this destruction," Drori Bar-Lev, secretary of the outpost, told Ynet.